the inspiration

I figured I should have at least one start off post, but i'm insanely busy and tired, so i decided to post an email after which friends suggested blogging for my future. like all the best posts, it involves crazy life in taiwan.

it's just one of those days when i've gotta say there is no way i am getting anything productive done, work-wise, in the next half hour. i just need to deal with it. and the way i will deal with it is by productively writing you guys. anyway, it all started when i was assigned my topic for the may issue and i asked if i could do something serious like eating disorders, insecurity, depression, etc in high schoolers. things are-- how do you say "totally repressed"--here so we get good responses from our largely high school aged audience if we ever do anything serious. my editor says "hey, how about an article on school uniforms instead." that's right. school uniforms. but since my work here gets butchered anyway i don't really give a fuck. it's very possible it's the grace of God sparing me from having a "fluff-piece on eating disorders" with my name attached, branding me as unemployable forever, and shaming my family's honorable criminal name. so i'm like, c'est la vie, school uniforms. and it's for 8th grade ESL students. so i submit it. and it comes back and they're like "it's too formal, we want a day in the life of a non-uniformed student." and i'm like "yeeeeeaaaahhhh, it's because i thought this topic was boring as shit that i couldnt get into it in the first place." so before i tromp down the street to get my afternoon coffee from the "Go In" coffee stand and then transport myself into lauren's shoes, i am thinking of you.

speaking of Go In, part of my daily lingo is "allright, i'm "going in" now" and it immediately gives me and my friends a little bit of mirth. the Go In is supposed to be fast, as in "Go IN and Go Out"quickly. It should really be named "Dawdle In" b/c in taiwan there is no sense of urgency whatsoever. so everyone takes their passive aggressive time. at subway it's the worst--they carefully place each piece of vegetable matter on the sandwich as if it were a feng shui experiment. i'm like 'you little fuckers, there are 500 people lined up here, grab the damn olives and shove 'em on there all messy like.' but the cookies are phenomenal. and where do i really have to go anyway? no need to be angry. i went to a pop concert of a quasi hip hop star here on saturday--jay chou. he's a bona fide star, but his style is quasi hip-hop, to clarify. he's adorable. totally my type--you know, moody, emaciated,disaffected looking. downturned mouth. anyway there were like 20,000 people there and we were standing midfield for like 3 hours. if i may share some highlights: 1. the wanna-be gangstas in front of us, who, after stumping along to the hiphop beat, broke out their lighters and sang every word of the 10-song long ballad interlude. chinese people,i'm sorry, dress em up in gangsta clothes, whatever, they are still suckers for cheesy ballads. really cheesy ballads. 2. the song in which jay dressed up in hip-hop/aboriginal garb(must be seen to be believed! hysterical, *velour*, dress-like green and yellow) and had representatives of every tribe in taiwan dancing behind him holding hands. 3. when he broke out and started playing an *aboriginal flute* at the end of the song, reminding me ever so slightly of John Corbett's hysterical turn as "lars", fiancee of kate beckinsale in Serendipity. 4. during the concert he had one song about saving children, a bunch of songs about his mom and grandma--lots of soft focus pictures of grandma who was in the audience, aboriginal and taiwanese songs, and a blind backup singer. I thought he was going to announce he was running for office.

anyway, the crowd was controlled and it was annoying to have to sit through the 4 contrived encores--the crowd wasnt even calling for an encore. they started to leave b/c they thought it was over. chinese people are fatalistic, all their hard work still ends up in oppressed mediocre lives manipulated by their parents, so why would they shout for him to come back--he wouldnt anyway. alas, he did come back and half the audience was at the exits. he didnt seem to notice--apparently he was forced to become a pop star by some record company who threatened not to buy any more of his songs if he didntperform. previously he was a geeky awkward composer who wanted to holeup in his room like one of those japanese people who doensnt see theoutside light for years at a time.anyway the best part was when we got to go backstage because ourfriends pretended to be reporters, one of them-jennifer--a black woman who has 100 miles of attitude--waved her cigarette in the air and said "yo, they're my friends" and the guards obeyed and let us in. they were totally afraid of her, which she totally used and i was glad forit. anyway then we had some fabulous 24 hour dim sum at the lucky hong kong restaurant. so there's my last satr day and the mind numbing work i'm doing right now here in shangri-hell .love you.